When we signed Ashby-Hammond he did an interview as it was inbetween LW and SM and I’m pretty sure he made reference to having followed Ashby-Hammond since an England youth training session. It appeared that Weal was very much behind the sighing of Ashby-Hammond, that said was he as well partly responsible in the signing of Stone, if so neither impressed and was that a factor in his leaving.
I suspect Slocombe may become the keeper coach hence why Stone not Slocombe was listed.
Football is a revolving industry. Individuals move on for all sorts of reasons. It doesn’t have to be a conspiracy every time.
On the face of it I thought Tom Weal came across as a knowledgeable and asset to the club. I do recall LW giving him praise about how thorough he was in preparations and research, particularly at Wembley.
I wanted us to sign Archie Mair on loan again after Wembley although as we have Brooks I guess the club wouldn't have wanted two young inexperienced goal keepers. Perhaps it's the emotion of him making that save at Wembley that might cloud my judgement. Since then he spent half a season on loan at Gateshead and then Morecambe.
At 23 perhaps a move away from Norwich to somewhere permanent at League Two / National League level is what he needs?
I think what gets clouded sometimes is the clubs judgement they seem to get so obsessed with the style of play that in my opinion signings were made and contracts renewed on this basis which meant we got stuck with a load of players being asked to perform duties they were not capable of. Players who might be ok somewhere else. However any Port Vale forum tells you that Stone was known to have various weaknesses before we signed him. Bit of an odd signing for me. There was ample criticism of some of our defensive play on here and anywhere else when we were non league which was clouded over as we simply dominated so many games with our forward play and not got away with that in L2. As the brothers would say the model needs tweeking. I am sure it will get sorted out. The defensive, side of our game surely can't get worse the big question is can we hand onto out prize assets?
The rumour I heard was that we wanted Belshaw but decided on Stone as Belshaw was too expensive. We kind of screwed ourselves by publicly announcing Slocombe wouldn't be number one in that case. Had we not said anything, we wouldn't have had to effectively panic buy a keeper that didn't fit and we had Brookes in the wins as back up anyway, plus the loan market. Probably a bit of naivety there